How to refinish old furniture

It’s time to re-think old and battered or unfashionable furniture as a diamond in the rough to be polished or striped, stained or painted – by you!

So where do you find these furniture gems waiting to take their place in your home? Council clean-ups are a veritable treasure trove – and whatever you find is free, bonus! Garage sales, charity shops, family hand-me-downs as well as buy-sell-swap online sites are all good sources, too.

Once you’ve found the piece, it’s time to make it shine.

Try these helpful tips

1. Wax it to revive dull wood especially if you’ve come across a mid-century classic. Check out Bunnings for Gilly’s Waxes & Polishes. There’s a product to do every job – even scratches which should be attended to before you wax. Small holes and cracks can be repaired with Beeswax Filler Stick. There’s even a Scratch Cover for darker woods.

2. Chalk paint it and you won’t need to prime before you paint although you may need to sand lightly. Super simple to use and quick to dry, Annie Sloan’s chalk paint on furniture results in a beautiful, ultra matt finish and you won’t need to sand beforehand.

3. Bling it up by changing the pulls, handles or knobs.

Before and after: how-to ceruse a sideboard

Choose timber furniture with a strong grain and use a centuries-old technique called ceruse to give it a fresh new look.

Before you start, remove all hardware. Then, always working in the direction of the grain, use a gel stripper and scraper to strip away the stain or varnish finish. Go over with a brass wire brush, then sand smooth.

When done the grain will be open and clean ready for you to spray paint with a black primer first, then green paint. Make sure you spray from right to left and back and again and remember several light coats are better than one heavy coat with lots of drips.

When dry, massage a black glaze on top with a soft-lint free rag.

Protect the finish with varnish and let dry. Reattach the hardware. The original base was replaced with a custom metal platform and legs to add height and to tap into the current trend for metal accents.

Before and after: how to create a subtle two-tone finish

Black paint in combination with the beauty of natural grained wood will modernise a mid-century classic chest of drawers.

Remove the drawers. Then you’ll need to strip and sand the entire piece.

Re-varnish the drawers to bring out the beautiful tones of the grained wood. Spray the piece with a black primer first, then a matching gloss paint to create the dramatic dark frame.

Dora PapasDora is the deputy editor and the decorating editor of Better Homes and Gardens. An experienced and passionate decorator and maker, she loves any kind of makeover from an entire home right through to simply rearranging furniture or creating gorgeous vignettes. Homewares shopkeepers know her by name!